Count Philippe Takes a Hand
by Igenlode Wordsmith
Summary: If the Viscount isn't prepared to set his relationship with Christine Daaé on a more appropriate footing, then the Count will just have to do it for him... Much embarrassment ensues. Rated T for suggestive language and situations.
1. In which Philippe is worldly

(A/N: Slightly AU Leroux setting: events as we know them at the Lyre of Apollo never took place, and Count Philippe is getting tired of waiting... This story is all the fault of Wild_Concerto, who prompted a crackfic speculation into the form of a fully fledged Victorian bodice-ripper!)

**Chapter 1: In which Philippe is worldly**

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><p><em>Le comte... désireux de savoir à quoi s'en tenir, avait demandé un rendez-vous à Christine Daaé:<em> (Ch. VIII: 'Où MM. Firmin Richard et Armand Moncharmin ont l'audace de faire représenter "Faust"...')

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><p>"You did <em>what<em>?"

"Sit down, Raoul." Philippe-Georges-Marie de Chagny raised an eyebrow as his young brother continued to loom over him furiously, but permitted himself no other sign of emotion. "If you wish to persuade me that you are capable of holding a rational conversation on the subject — sit _down_."

Into that last word he set the flick of whipcrack authority that had quelled a fatherless twelve-year-old, and the young man subsided into the well-stuffed chair on the other side of the library fire. He glared back at his brother with the expression of one who finds himself at a disadvantage but is not quite certain how he got there.

Philippe crossed one immaculately-shod leg over the other and leaned back in his own chair with a familiar creak of leather. The sound brought back to mind countless lectures from their father when he himself had been a skirt-chasing sixteen, and Raoul not born or thought of...

The boy was nearly twenty-one, for all he looked barely old enough to shave. If he was not prepared to take the necessary measures where this girl was concerned, then Philippe would simply have to do it for him.

He let fall the quelling hand he had raised, and Raoul burst into speech.

"You proposed _what_ to Miss Daaé?"

His hot tone indicated that he refused to believe it, and the Count surveyed his brother from under weary lids, his head thrown back.

"I assure you that after some hours of discussion she was prepared to take a most... realistic view. A young person of some sense, as well as untried talent; I make no doubt she will be an ornament to our stage for years to come. And when this little affair burns its way out there will be no lack of protectors willing to take her off your hands—"

"Take that back!" His brother had leapt up with something like a sob, too-bright eyes blazing. Philippe's own reflexes had him on his feet unthinking: he caught Raoul's wrists and held them as the boy fought against his grasp. "Take that back — it's a lie!"

"Enough!" From anyone else it would have been deadly insult; Philippe bit back the urge to strike his young brother across the face. But Raoul was already flushed and mumbling apologies in the humiliating knowledge that he had gone too far.

"So." Philippe crossed his arms and surveyed him, letting the lesson sink in. "The little Daaé — unlike you, Viscount — does not enjoy a status in life that permits of being... quixotic. Once I had made our position quite clear, she was prepared to accept my terms. In the end. And I assure you my stipulations were more than generous on your behalf."

"What—"

Raoul's eyes sought out his own with a look half-horror and — if the Count was not mistaken — half-yearning despite himself. He swallowed and tried again. "What exactly did you say you'd offered her— us?"

"First of all I offered to pay her off, of course." Philippe shrugged. "She gave me to understand there were no circumstances under which she would accept such money."

In truth, he had not credited the little Swedish singer with such a command of the vernacular. La Carlotta's fabled origins at the Café Jacquin could not have supplied a more expressive retort as to his ancestry and all his intentions. The Count bit at his moustache, suppressing a smile at the recollection.

"Then we proceeded to more fruitful conversation. We discussed your career, the Chagny traditions, the need for polish, the views of Society... in short, your future, Raoul. And her undoubted affection on your behalf, coupled with my representations upon the subject, led us at length to an agreement. She would relinquish any pretensions to your hand — and I would set her up in a discreet establishment in your name, as such things are generally understood at the Opera, where the two of you would be entirely at liberty to pursue your mutual attraction to its natural end." He corrected the all-too-apt slip hastily, with an inward smile. "That is, its natural, ah, consummation. "

His brother was still looking stunned. Philippe made no doubt that the young man's imagination, where the prospect of the little Daaé was concerned, was not quite as innocent as he would have preferred the Count to believe. He was a Chagny, after all.

"You— And she—" Raoul was gaping like a fish. "She — agreed?"

"The Valerius woman will give the customary appearance of propriety," Philippe said smoothly, watching the hot colour mount in the boy's face with a certain degree of compunction; but at that age, presumably, one was not in danger of apoplexy. And really it was possible to be entirely too pure for one's own good. If Raoul had only followed the example of his classmates in setting up a mistress years ago, none of this deplorable affair would have happened.

"The establishment is a small town-house on the Right Bank in the rue de Valmy — unassuming but, I flatter myself, well-appointed. I have taken the first quarter's rent out of your allotment from our father's estate, but you will of course have to decide how long you wish to maintain the household and in what degree of style." He smoothed his moustache with a reminiscent sigh, remembering emeralds tumbling on creamy shoulders. "You see, I have to warn you, brother, that once these little ladies from the Opera learn their way to a man's purse, life can become astonishingly expensive..."

"How dare you!" Raoul's furious exclamation was all but incomprehensible.

He had aimed a wild blow at his brother's face, only to be left reeling by the astonished Count's side-step: Philippe caught the young man in a merciless grip and bore him downwards.

"Don't be a complete fool." It was said between gritted teeth as Raoul struggled. "If it's fisticuffs you want, boy, I've twice your weight and twice your experience — and I'm not quite in my dotage yet..."

Forced back into the chair, Raoul yielded abruptly, staring up at his brother with a blind, uncomprehending gaze. But Philippe did not think it was the threat that had quelled him.

"And she's there? Now?" The hurt in the boy's eyes would have bruised a heart of stone.

"I gave her my word not to tell you until after her arrival this morning," Philippe said quietly, pressing his brother's hand in sympathy. He glanced up at their mother's ornate clock on the mantelpiece. "And at this very moment, I fancy, she's hosting an intimate gathering to christen the new salon — a few performers from the Opera House, a few of our own acquaintances..."

He had insisted, despite the girl's reluctance. She would have to learn to play hostess if the connection was to do Raoul credit; and the little Daaé's reputation for virtue was all too tenacious. It was as well to make sure word spread that she had chosen a protector now.

"As for what comes next — well, we had that talk years ago, and I'll spare your blushes." He guffawed and freed his hand to clap Raoul on the shoulder, remembering his own first escapades. "But I've done what I can; you've been hot for the girl for months, and she's agreed to make a man out of you. If you don't take advantage of the situation, then you're more the fool than any Chagny has a right to be."

If he knew Raoul, the boy would be round there within the hour demanding explanations of the poor child: but one way or the other — and in his view, it was high time for 'the other' — there was nothing like a wish gratified to bring an end to an infatuation.

The Count turned on his heel, reaching into a waistcoat pocket. "By the by, I fancy you'll want this. Catch—"

He tossed the key in his hand towards Raoul, who caught it on instinct.

"Side-door key — unless you want to make a scene in front of the servants, that is. A man should always have a side-door key to his own house..."

And shrugging his coat back to its customary perfection of set across the shoulders and adjusting the angle of the tie-pin at his throat, Philippe de Chagny left the library with the ghost of a tune on his lips. Just at this moment he felt a decided inclination for the company of the exquisite Sorelli.


	2. In which Raoul is unworldly

**Chapter 2: In which Raoul is unworldly**

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><p><em>"Nous ne marierons jamais, c'est entendu... mais ceci est un bonheur qui ne fera mal à personne."<em> (Ch. XIII: "Au-dessus des trappes")

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><p>In the end, after five minutes of hesitation outside the entrance <em>loge<em> — five minutes during which he imagined his presence remarked upon by every passing vehicle, yet could not face the knowing grin of the concierge — Raoul found himself using the side-door key.

And the worst of it was the humiliating worldly rush that his brother had doubtless intended: the sense of intimacy, of secret admission, in slipping that key into the lock where no casual passer-by had the right to enter. _"A man should always have a side-door key to his own house,"_ Philippe had murmured, with that heavy-lidded droop of the eyes that men passed between one another at the club when the topic touched upon lewdness. The door and the discreet passage beyond yielded to his — Raoul's — halting possession in a rush of implication borne all too vividly in upon his mind.

He had not wanted this. Furious at himself and at Philippe for the suggestion, Raoul dropped the key into his own pocket and moved towards the light and sound of voices in the salon beyond.

The whole place had a disquieting air of familiarity. It was as if he'd furnished it himself without knowing it — everything chosen to please his taste, and yet speaking in every detail of Christine like the mingled ghost of some future that had never happened... The elegance and sophistication were Philippe's doing. But that unmistakable feminine touch — that sense of _her_ — was so strong that it was like a shared domesticity; an encroachment that was almost frightening in its promise.

His own house... with her. The idea was real in a way that it hadn't been before. And it would be so easy. Just perform what was expected of him, and let things ride...

But Christine! He kept circling back to that in numbed disbelief. Christine, as pure and fresh as an Angel from the North, so shy as to shrink from her own ambitions — how could she lend herself to this? How could she allow herself to be seduced here by tawdry courtesan's trappings? What hold had his brother found over her to force her into such a scheme?

He was angry with Philippe, but... that at least he understood. His brother was a pillar of Society, of admired talents and tolerated vices, and the virtue of the girl Raoul loved was to him nothing but a threat and an embarrassment.

But Christine... She'd had a hand in this; everything around him proclaimed it. She'd _chosen_ this house, these furnishings, this... home. She'd consented to what Philippe proposed, and begged his brother not to tell him — yes, and that, Raoul thought furiously, that he could well believe. It rang true. She'd kept him in the dark again and again, strung him along in pretended concern, and now she had some reason of her own for putting both of them through this charade at his brother's behest.

This very public charade: for at that moment voices rose in giggling outcry in the far room and two girls came tripping out — arms twined around each other's waists as they whispered shared scandal — and he found himself standing absurdly there with his face flaming, like an interloper.

"Why, Viscount—"

He didn't know either of them, but by their accents they were from the Opera: acquaintances perhaps of Christine, or — worse — of Philippe. At any rate it was all too plain that they knew him.

"_Raoul?_" Christine's voice from within, with an uncertain tremor in it. This, at least, she had not planned; and there was a bitter satisfaction in it that carried him into the salon to confront her in the face of the assembled company.

Somehow he'd thought she would look different: jewelled, gaudy... betrayed. But there was nothing coarse about Christine. There never had been.

She wore her one good gown, the sky-blue silk that she'd saved for out of her first earnings, and the locket she had from her mother: other girls at the Opera had jewels by the handful from admirers, but she had none.

In that room of bright gossip she was gentle and poised, the focus of every eye in a role that held her centre stage. She was playing the part of hostess with the same collected courage with which she would have faced down a hostile claque, and only Raoul could have seen the pale strain that lay beneath that control.

A moment ago he had been ready to rail against her. Now it was all he could do to keep from rushing to her side to defend her against the whole parcel of them: the casual malice of young de Castigné, the lounging elegance of Vardeaux, the black button-eyed twinkle of plump Madame Druet, who could nose out a rumour at twenty paces — parasites, all of them, sucking on the latest scandals to gain the entrée to the functions they craved. One slip on Christine's part, and tomorrow Tout-Paris would be laughing at her.

And the rest of them were no better: tittering girls from the opera-ballet, encroaching and vulgar, preening moustachioed singers from minor roles and strutting coxcombs of understudies with the reek of paint and grease about them, all of them clambering and eager for advancement, ready to sell their souls to rub elbows with a title or an address in the Faubourg St-Germain. How dared they impose upon Christine in this manner—?

"Raoul, please." A gentle touch at his elbow; Christine had risen and was looking up at him anxiously, her lips parted in distress. He became aware belatedly that he had halted halfway across the room, ruffled and glaring, and that all conversation had died. For an instant's wild impulse he thought to catch her by the wrist and run, to flee together like children from those eyes, these lighted boards, this life, this place...

"Viscount, forgive me—" It was Vardeaux, making his bow to smooth down the situation with the shamefaced kindness that underlay his hopelessly loose tongue. "Miss Daaé's art is truly a wonder to us all. Why, my godmother, Madame de Maleron..."

And somehow, between Vardeaux's well-meant chatter and Christine's silent plea, he found himself drawn down beside her into the heart of that lighted gathering as the game of platitudes and empty compliment began again with an almost audible relief. Heaven forbid, after all, that there should be an actual _scene_. Even for the old Druet creature, that would not do at all.

Raoul set his teeth and endured, as he had endured endless petting in Philippe's train from dowagers to whom he would forever be fourteen; as he had endured tedium at his club with men whose skill at cards far exceeded their conversation, and bawdy speculation in the mess-room with cadets whose ideas outran their experience. He was acutely conscious of Christine at his side, though they barely exchanged a word. The ruffles at her shoulder stirred with breaths that were a little too shallow, and as she leant forward the folds of her gown brushed his knee. Once her fingers slipped briefly across his own in search of reassurance, a clinging ghost of touch that seemed to burn across his hand for all to see, and he could have flung the world away to leap to her defence.

But the hour wore on. Drinks were brought in by an unsmiling manservant, guests made their excuses and took their leave, and at length Vardeaux, who had lingered, proposed to call a cab and escort the remaining ladies home. The discussions thus involved drew the party into the hall, and Raoul, left alone, hesitated. But the next moment Christine had slipped back into the room with a little sob of breath, her hands held out to his; and the voices next door meant nothing to either of them as her head went down on his shoulder and she came into his arms for comfort.

"Christine..." His voice was ragged, and she raised her face to his, laying one finger across his lips as if for silence.

He had not meant to kiss her. But her mouth moved shyly against that first impulsive graze of his, and his arm slid to tighten around her waist with something like a sigh; and somehow he could not break away until the blood was pounding in his ears and the taste of her was unforgettable on his lips like a drug that drove men to crave more.

"We—" He did not know what he had meant to say. She had stiffened in his arms and silenced him with a touch, pulling free.

"The guests! I must say farewell—"

She was flushed, and her mouth was warm with kisses; Raoul felt the quick colour run up into his own face at the thought. "You can't— like that— they'll think —"

"Raoul, they know." Her eyes fell; came up defiantly. "Vardeaux sought to give us a moment alone: what else would he expect?"

Fists tightening, Raoul had a mind to wring the man's neck. Of all the presumptuous, boorish—

But it was the knowledge of his own weakness that had his cheeks flaming scarlet. He'd been as quick to take advantage as any scandal-monger could have wished; and the other man's gesture at privacy, indiscreet fribble though he was, had been kindly meant.

It was all he could do to meet Vardeaux's gaze as the last of the guests descended once more upon Christine in a swirl of bonnets and mantles to make their farewells and take leave of their gentle hostess. He managed to stumble through a few proprieties with a stiff bow; but he could have sworn, through gritted teeth, that Vardeaux had tipped him an admiring, languorous wink.

"Philippe. Dear brother Philippe." The words were jerked out of him like a curse as the front door closed, and he dropped back down to sit with his head between his hands. "Oh God, Christine, what a mess — what a joke, on us both..."

Through the curtain of his tears he could glimpse her gown. She was close enough to touch. He would not look up. "And how could you— how could you let him believe that you were... that you would..."

He felt her light weight settle beside him. Her fingers were cool where they caught at his own, urging: he resisted for a moment, then yielded with a groan to bury his hot face against her breast. Her arms were about his shoulders, her breath stirring in his hair, and broken endearments rocked to and fro between them as they clung.

"Raoul... dearest Raoul..." Her fingers traced behind his ear and trailed downward along his jaw; he raised his head to lean into that caress with a sigh. This was not decent, it was not proper, and he was too tired and hurt to care...

But she drew away, folding her hands in her lap. There were fresh tear-marks on her cheeks.

"Count Philippe is right — no, listen! I can never be a Viscount's wife."

She took a deep breath, as if to forestall the objections that tumbled to his lips. "It's true. We both knew it from the start — we tried very hard not to love each other, you and I. It hasn't changed: the Count made that very clear. Marrying me could cost you your friends, your family, your inheritance, your chance of promotion — your whole world and everything you've ever known, Raoul, everything else in your life. And if we were unhappy — if the cost was too much — then you would be trapped with me in resentment and shame, and I couldn't bear it..."

Her voice had trembled a little, but she went on. "Men don't marry girls from the Opera. They give them houses, they give them gifts, they pass time with them in public for a few months here or a few months there, take their pleasure and are gone. That's what the Count sees in me: a little education for his little brother, an infatuation gratified and then burned out with no harm done. He wants you happy, truly, if this is what you want — but not at the price of your future. He'll give us everything... short of marriage."

She had always been strong and clear-eyed, holding to her course through a bitter world while he tossed helpless and inexperienced in her wake, veering from one extreme to another like a small craft on a trailing line. He'd never thought to see her bend to the wind of his brother's cynical scorn. The pain of it was almost physical within his heart.

"If you think for one moment that I would leave—"

His hands had gone out to her almost without thinking: she caught them in her own and held them tight.

"I don't, my dear love — you know I don't. But he believes you would; he's counting on it. He wants to see you give up thoughts of marriage, and if..." She looked away, the words almost inaudible. "If that means getting you to lie with me, then he wants to see it done."

It wasn't that he hadn't thought of it — hadn't thought of her that way. He shifted in awkwardness at the sudden, unwanted leap of his pulse, and his breath seemed abruptly harsh in his ears. In the worst squalls of his jealousy he'd pictured her vividly beneath that unknown other, and suffered for it in burning torments of his own...

"I know exactly what Philippe thinks of me — and of you." His voice sounded oddly distant, as if it belonged to someone else, and floods of hot and cold were breaking over him. He thrust down that worse self, trying to keep his hands from shaking, and caught at anger as a saving grace. "What I don't understand is why you — why any decent girl would let him think you'd agreed."

"Because it lets us be together." Christine's head came up almost fiercely to meet his gaze, despite the tremor that shook her. "Because the world won't then turn a hair to see me walking on your arm, seated behind your horses, dining at your side: the world tolerates such things, Raoul, it expects nothing more of me and nothing less of you. And this way—"

She faltered. "This way — if we find, after all, that we don't suit, then... nothing will have been lost."

It was like a slap in the face. "Nothing — except your reputation!"

His hands had tightened on hers to an almost bruising grasp; she broke free and sprang to her feet, eyes blazing.

"Ask Count Philippe — ask Monsieur de Castigné, or your friend Vardeaux. I'm an opera-singer. I don't _have_ a reputation!"

"Carlotta—"

"La Carlotta sings in the salons of her lovers, and all Paris knows it." She broke off with a gasp, one hand flying to cover her mouth as if to catch back the coarse words; but it was too late.

Raoul's face flamed. "If that's what you think of me, Miss Daaé—"

He too had risen half-instinctively as she stood; now he turned on his heel in the sudden icy silence between them. From behind him, he heard her little desolate laugh.

"It's what they all think — your brother made sure of that. When they left us here together tonight..." The implication stretched out between them, measured in the ticking of the hallway clock. Another tear fell.

"We can never be married, we both know that. But I thought... when your brother came to me with his offer, I thought we could take his bargain and make it our own. Take his expectation and defy it: steal happiness in the teeth of what the world allows. While he waits for you to tire of me... oh Raoul, we can make a marriage of our own, a promise between the two of us. Call it a pretence if you will, like our pretend engagement, but it can be very real, my dearest, so real — whatever they believe — if only we stay true."

She came to him slowly, the brush of her gown the only sound as she set a hesitant hand on his arm. "And if it's a sin, then I am willing to pay for us both — if you want me."

If he wanted her... He had to swallow twice past the thickness in his throat. "We don't have to do this. We don't have to do what they expect."

He could leave now. Leave Paris, go down to Brest, escape back to his ship and his duty. Throw Philippe's poisoned chalice back in his face—

Throw Christine's sacrifice aside like a used rag into the gutter and convince the whole world that he'd had her and discarded her, dipped into her waters and found them not to his taste. When he'd walked in here tonight in a stiff-necked possessive fury, he'd ruined her as surely as if he'd stripped her naked in the street.

Her touch on his sleeve asked for nothing and made no demands; but behind the brave eyes that sought out his own he understood at last how deeply she was afraid.

"Christine — sweet Christine—" She came into his arms with a shuddering rush, bright hair pressed tight against his shoulder, and he knew all at once that he couldn't leave — couldn't let her go — couldn't lose this — ever.

"Raoul, we don't have to — if you don't want—" But her hands found and guided his, and beneath the stiff fastenings she was softer to the touch than anything he had ever imagined. He couldn't catch his breath; couldn't stop.

When she cried out his name again, it was a plea. Her mouth was upturned to his, and they were drowning together...

"It's not a sin." Pledges; promises in her chamber, the last in the trail of trust that bound them. "Not for me, not like this — not with you."

And maybe he would pay a thousand years in purgatory for each word, each vow, but she was his truth and he was hers and he no longer knew right from wrong or day from night, or anything but the leap of faith in her eyes, and the urgency that moved them both.

~o~

Raoul rolled over, drained and slightly sick.

In the clarity that came with the death of lust, he saw himself all too plain. Remembered, in detail, what he— what they had just done, and his own heaving perfunctory part. And he'd used her — Christine! — for _that_; for that vile permissive act... He'd dressed it up in fine words like some back-alley seducer, and made a whore of her and a pander of himself.

In that moment, he could have cut his own throat. But it was too late now. It would have been better if he had done so ten minutes before: better for them both.

He groaned, from the heart. "Oh _God_—"

"Raoul?" Christine was leaning over him, eyes dark with concern; she was uncovered, and despite everything some shameful part of him wanted her again.

"I—" He tried to look away; remembered the flinch of her body under his. He had _forced_ her... "I should never... I — I hurt you."

"Dearest." She took his face between her hands, turning it towards her with a gentle sweetness that he could not gainsay. There was laughter in her eyes, and an odd wisdom. "Dearest, you made a woman of me, that's all."

Warm skin brushed his, shadowed and bare; she settled against him tender and unafraid, and the sick emptiness that had swept over him began to ebb.

"Philippe... said you would make a man out of me." His laugh was shaky but real, and she caught his hand and drew it closer to nestle at her throat.

"Then we'll share." The words were whispered, but her heart beat steadily under his touch, and he slipped his other arm about her and held her close. Whatever they'd done, it had been together. And he was still Raoul and she was still Christine, and he still loved her from the very depths of his soul. The world righted itself, leaving only the memory of a lurching gulf.

But if it was like that every time— The thought seduced and repelled him all at once, stirring unwanted response, and he buried a groan in her hair. "Christine, I don't know if I—"

"It doesn't matter... oh hush, love, hush..." A long moment of acceptance, her body stilled against his.

"They say"— she hesitated, offering doubtful rumour— "they say it gets better, later on."

But she was small and infinitely precious in his clasp, and this was enough, Raoul thought. Surely this would always be enough...

~o~

It did get better later on.


	3. In which Christine enjoys worldly succes

**Chapter 3: In which Christine enjoys worldly success**

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><p><em>Si je devais donner mon cœur sur la terre, elle n'avait plus, elle... la Voix, qu'à remonter au ciel.<em> (Ch. XIII, "La Lyre d'Apollon")

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><p>The electric light cast harsher shadows and the gilding was burnished a little uneven with age. But time had been good to the Opera House, Christine Daaé thought, pausing on the stairs. The strident brightness of twenty years ago — when the building had been little older than her own nascent career — had lost its garish edge and matured to a warm serene glow.<p>

And if the bright lights betrayed the first traces of lines around her eyes and at the laughing corners of her mouth, her voice had grown along with her beloved Opera to its full golden power. Every birth-pang and hard-bought wisdom in those years had taught it fresh depths, and each passing season brought the diva more truly into the hearts of Paris.

A half-smile, remembering gaucheness — heartbreak — scandal. No, she would not trade those years of happiness for anything... least of all to be twenty again. The applause from tonight's gala was still ringing in her ears, mingled now with the eager buzz of voices from the subscribers gathering below.

La Daaé laid one hand on the stair rail; lifted the other briefly to settle the long diamond drops in her ears before beginning to descend. They had been a gift for this performance from her chief — indeed, her universally-acknowledged — admirer, and the light caress against her neck brought memories of its own. Her smile softened into affection... widened again into polished, professional courtesy on the first landing, where she ran into the Count de Chagny, who was ascending.

"Madame, a triumph." There was genuine appreciation in the rather hard eyes, and she took it as her due. No-one, after all, had ever been able to fault Philippe's taste.

The high forehead was wider now, but age and grey hair had done him no ill-favours — he was as self-possessed and elegant as ever — and family responsibilities had tempered the arrogance somewhat. There had been a state of armed truce between them for years, culminating in the whole Eustacie affair: but the Count was gracious enough to accept well-bred defeat, and she had never been one to hold a grudge. He had kept his word, after all, to use the de Chagny influence in her favour during that first fragile blossoming of her career.

So they met, these days, with smiles of mutual acknowledgement and the guarded welcome of long acquaintance, and the matter of Raoul and his heirs lay unspoken between them. Paris had long since accepted the situation, and — though she would never have said it — Philippe had only himself to blame.

She held out a hand and he stooped to salute it, the grey head bent with practised courtesy.

"Truly magnificent, Madame. A wonderful evening; a tremendous performance. The new _Thaïs_ is exquisite, and the corps de ballet excelled themselves."

La Daaé laughed, accepting his arm as they descended. "You have Little Giry's discipline to thank for that, Count. The Baron's gain was our loss: our _prima ballerina_ is most sadly missed."

She had wondered sometimes, of late, if she could ever have done as Meg Giry had done: played off a dozen admirers against one another at arm's length, and found a way into honourable marriage at the peak of her career. The black flashing eyes of the Baroness de Castelot-Barbezac were as bright in her dark little face as ever, but the gleaming stone on her finger mocked at Philippe de Chagny and those of his generation, and she had her own box at the Opera now.

But she, Christine, would not have had those years in Raoul's arms — those years when they had laughed together in the face of the world like the two young fools in love that they had been. A young man on leave could take his mistress almost anywhere, and Raoul had: at first with the Count's amused approval, and then — as months lengthened into years and her first discreet retirement from the stage had come and gone with no sign that the Viscount would look elsewhere — to his brother's increasingly frustrated fury. Raoul was to marry; to achieve the rank of Admiral, maintain the family traditions and carry on the de Chagny line, not to keep supporting an increasingly irregular ménage in cheerful disregard of the Count's most cherished plans.

At thirty, he'd seemed in a fair way to inherit his brother's mantle as a firmly-established bachelor, with all the licence that implied. But he'd been a fine marital catch for all that, and there had proved to be no shortage of girls and their mothers over the next few years prepared to overlook the Viscount's indiscreet private life in support of Count Philippe's ambitions. Eustacie had been only the last — and most determined — in a long line.

The girl had genuinely fallen for Raoul, Christine acknowledged now with a touch of regret. She'd been a de Chagny cousin on their mother's side, little more than a babe in arms when the old Count had died, and she'd toddled after the boy in childhood on her mother's infrequent visits. Raoul had laughed to see her all grown up; but he'd been kind to her, danced with her, and — without meaning it — had swept her off her feet. The raised hopes, the greed, and the family scenes that had followed Christine laid entirely, as always, to Philippe's account.

She cast a sidelong glance at the handsome, aging face. Well, he finally had what he wanted, even if not the way he'd wanted it. The marriage had made him easier to live with, at least, and for Raoul's sake she could be glad of that. Eustacie had her title, her wealth and her babies... and if her bargain had not brought her the love of the man she'd fought so hard to get, the trade was no fault but her own.

Heads turned in the room below as La Daaé came down the staircase, a stir running through the bright-coloured throng, and the Count de Chagny beside her bent his head in acknowledgment, presenting with a gesture the diva on his arm. There were faces she knew, others she recognised from boxes on the Grand Tier tonight: the Prefect of Police, two ministers and a chief commissioner, and a whole galaxy of uniforms, stars and beribboned orders. There were friends too, colleagues and companions with whom she'd argued, laughed and traded tales, and women who'd welcomed her warmly as hostess. But the fervour of applause that rose up to meet her was homage to her art, and as such she responded, taking her due with the grace of a lifetime.

Her eyes were seeking all the while through the crowd for the one face that really mattered; the one beloved pair of shoulders she would know at a glimpse in the dark... There! At the foot of the bannister, with his hands held out and pride and joy in every line of his body: Raoul's infectious delight woke her own laughter, as always.

And there beside him stood Eustacie, caught for a moment unawares and all too clear to read. She alone had not turned to watch the triumph of the moment: her gaze was for the Viscount... watching, as ever, to see his go elsewhere.

La Daaé, who had a kind heart, kept her features schooled to polite courtesy as he caught her hand and kissed it, and saw his own formal mask slip back on in response. But it was an empty gesture. Raoul had never learned to guard his eyes.

"Madame." She made her courtesy to Eustacie de Chagny, and acknowledged the reluctant response. "The Count has been kindness itself... I hope you enjoyed the performance?"

"Indeed. The view from our box was excellent." It was a stiff little voice with the stilted vowels of one who still feared to find herself provincial, and made her sound more a schoolgirl than the great lady she hoped to be. Clearly conscious of it, Eustacie flushed. "Philippe particularly commended the ballet."

And there was that topic of conversation exhausted... Sighing inwardly, Christine tried again. "I believe I glimpsed your son, Madame, the other day when you were out in the carriage. You must both be very proud of him — a fine, well-grown boy."

Eustacie's head came up. "Yes, Pierre is a great comfort to me... and everyone says he bears the true de Chagny stamp."

As did her own Georges and Sébastien — all too plainly. Christine's eyes met Raoul's in a shared rueful glance, as the corner of his mouth twitched. At least little Lucie took after her mother...

It was a pity the children could not get to know their 'cousins'; but Philippe had always done his utmost to avoid acknowledging the existence of his brother's irregular offspring. The Daaé children had tumbled their cheerful way towards adulthood secure in their father's affections, with the acceptance that there was a part of his life they would never know. The Count would have been so proud of Georges, eager and alert in his cadet's uniform, or Bastien, the image of that boy to whom Philippe had become a second father — but stubbornness still kept them adamantly apart.

She appealed suddenly to the younger woman on impulse. "I wish you would come out to see us sometime at Louveciennes, Madame de Chagny, and bring Pierre — and the little one. We keep a very informal household, my maid and I, and you would be most welcome... and I promise I wouldn't subject you to the threat of any music!"

What harm could it do, after all? Philippe had his legitimate heir — his next Count de Chagny — and that was all he'd ever cared for. Poor Eustacie was lying in the bed she'd made for herself... at Philippe's instigation.

But if one was to be honest, that was not any of it quite true. The Count truly cared for Raoul — had always done so, even when they were most at odds — and whatever their history, he had a warm affection for Eustacie. If the girl had thought this marriage would bring her closer to Raoul, then she was a fool, and that was that.

Eustacie's sniff rejected any overtures of friendship. "Oh, I wouldn't put you to such trouble, I assure you."

The lights overhead flickered briefly as if in echo, and all around them conversation ebbed for a moment before redoubling in response.

"Sometimes, I'd swear this place was alive," Raoul said under his breath, half in jest; but Eustacie's eyes flew to his face and she shivered, catching at his sleeve.

"Don't say that — haven't you heard the stories..?"

It was a blatant ploy, and the Count's lips tightened at the gaucheness of it. Raoul exchanged a glance with his brother before setting his arm briefly around her shoulders in reassurance.

"I grew up on stories, Eustacie — when I was little I used to beg them from the peasants — and some of those fairytales would have made your hair curl. But I promise you there's nothing to be scared of here."

It was the older-cousin tone he would have used to her as a child, and she lifted her chin with a flashing look of female challenge. "Then why don't you ask Christine Daaé, who's been at the Opera so _long_? Why don't you ask her — about the accidents... the deaths... the chandelier? Why don't you ask her about the Opera Ghost?"

It was spite — poor jealous spite. Eustacie was too young: she _could_ not know. Nobody knew.

But forgotten horror and pity came clawing back at Christine, and she could feel the colour draining from her cheeks. Above the girl's oblivious head she could see the same white shock shadowed in Raoul's eyes; she'd told him the true story, in the end. Most of it.

She took a deep breath, mastering herself as if on stage.

"As you say, Madame, I've been here a long time." She made the words as civil as she could. "And those were rumours for foolish girls when I was little more than a girl myself. If you have heard of the accident with the chandelier, then you must have heard of the poor deformed creature they found hanging a few months later below the stage. And that was the last death that anyone has heard of in this place, and the last of the stories of a ghost. It was all over — all over, a long time ago."

She had thought he might die of grief or that he might kill her for her betrayal; but he had done neither, her Angel of Music who was only Erik, only a man. He had taken his own life in the blackness of his despairing domain, and it was her hand that had set the noose around his throat as surely as if she had been there to see it.

She had dreamed of that horror on nights when Raoul was not with her. And she would never know if it was the talk of her loss of virtue that Erik had been unable to bear... or of her happiness.

"So you see there is no mystery and no ghost." Raoul's voice was almost rough. "Tonight is Miss Daaé's night, and we have been less than courteous in distressing her... Brother, don't you think the hour grows a little late for Eustacie?"

It was a temerity that verged on outright dismissal, and the young woman's mouth dropped open as if he had slapped her; but Philippe de Chagny nodded, looking grim, and held out his arm.

"Come." The single curt syllable offered no alternative, and the Countess, head held defiantly high, set her hand on her husband's sleeve and allowed herself to be towed away.

Trembling more than she had realised, Christine let out a long breath and felt the comfort of Raoul's arm around her waist, heedless of the crowds around them.

"She doesn't know, of course... She just wants to make me feel my age." She gave a shaky laugh; at that moment every one of those years — and more — seemed graven in her flesh. "The little cat... She should never have married him. Sooner or later she'll go too far."


	4. In which old ghosts are laid

**Chapter 4: In which old ghosts are laid**

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><p><em>Quoi qu'il arrivât, votre situation dans le monde m'interdisait à jamais la pensée d'une honnête union...<em> (Ch. XIII, "La Lyre d'Apollon")

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><p>Coals shifted in the grate with a little tumbling sigh, and Christine settled closer into Raoul's arms with a contented murmur of her own. This was where she belonged: at this hour, in this room, warm and indecorous in her lover's lap in the big chair that was an intimate home for two...<p>

The house on the rue de Valmy had been a plaything for a rich young boy and a rising star — a toy in Raoul's name where they could play at love, play at marriage, and learn to live together, with poor bewildered Maman Valerius to help the proprieties... and, on occasion, to keep the peace. Perhaps it had been cruel to deceive the old lady so; but she had always liked Raoul, and it would have been more cruel for her to know the truth about the young man whose visits seemed so assiduous, and sometimes so early in the morning... It was a pity poor Maman had never lived to see Georges. But Christine really did not know how she would have explained that.

A rueful little smile. She slipped her own hand up to cover Raoul's touch in what was becoming an unhurried pleasant exploration. The evening would end as it usually did; but they were both old enough enough now to appreciate the preliminaries.

Beyond the bright pool of the lamp shadows danced in the rhythm of the firelight, a steady ebb and glow across the villa's battered, bourgeois comfort. Life on the rue de Valmy had been a game: an exquisite game of young hearts and elegant aristocracy, but in the end it had been a game on Count Philippe's terms, where she was a kept woman in a house that was not her own. It had not been a place to bring up a child, let alone to carry a second. The new villa at Louveciennes had been a godsend when it came up for sale.

She'd been ungainly with Bastien when the purchase had gone through, tired and fretful and in no mind to consider Raoul's preference or taste. For herself, she'd barely cared.

In the years since, there had never, somehow, seemed to be time to make changes... and for all his grumbles, she doubted even Raoul wanted to redecorate now. These stolid rooms had seen their children grow up and weathered quarrels and storms and despair, in the years when Raoul had been months at sea and life on stage had seemed the most impossible. Louveciennes was home... and it was hers, legally, with her name on the deeds and her earnings passing under the notary's seal. No nobleman's whim could turn them out onto the street — and if it amused her to house a Viscount as her kept man, then she could.

It was an old joke between them; she buried a smile in a soft sound of enjoyment against the Viscount's waistcoat, and felt his mouth stir against her hair.

"Christine—" His arms tightened round her with a sigh, and she turned her face up to his to claim an answering embrace of her own.

But his eyes were sober and quite direct. "I wish you'd marry me."

"Marry — _now_?" For a moment she didn't even understand the words; she sprang up and pulled away abruptly. With the mood shattered, that familiar touch was suddenly far too intimate in places she didn't even want to think about: cold convention told her they were the caresses of a loose woman, not a wife.

And it was foolish, foolish after so many years— She didn't understand, any more than he, and her heart ached for the hurt in his eyes: but how could he just ask the impossible, just like that?

"To protect you from Eustacie?" She'd meant it to come out on a laugh, to bring them together in a softening of the blow, but to her dismay the words held all the unforgiven hurt of that gala night. "Your brother's wife with the morals of a spoilt child and an eye for everything that isn't hers?"

And to think that in the security of her love for Raoul she had been sorry for the girl...

Raoul had said no. He'd said no with a persistent gentle stubbornness that the Count knew all too well... but the girl had been family, she'd threatened scandal, and when Philippe had proposed a cold-blooded counter-bargain, Eustacie had said yes.

"She set her heart on being a Viscount's wife. When she found she couldn't have that, she thought being the Count's wife would be more than second best." Raoul did manage a laugh, but it was short and rather bitter. "She's done her duty by Philippe, I'll grant her that: the de Chagny line is safe, and wedlock suits him better than either of us ever dreamed. But if ever I was careless or cruel enough to raise her hopes without knowing it—"

"Dearest, I'll swear you weren't." All constraint forgotten, Christine reached out to him, laying her cheek against his, and felt him gather her close.

"Then marry me," Raoul said softly against her a long moment later, drawing her down into the chair, and she looked up at him again with a helpless shake of the head.

"Raoul, I'm an aging actress with no reputation and three illegitimate children — you know perfectly well we can't do anything of the sort."

"Well, if they were another man's children I can see that might be something of an obstacle," Raoul said with a straight face, and she elbowed him mercilessly in the ribs.

"Stop laughing at me... If this is your idea of a joke, then it's not kind. A man doesn't"—she bit her lip, but pressed on—"he doesn't marry his mistress."

They'd been happy with what they had. Why give the world a chance to spoil it all?

"It's been twenty years." Raoul's heartbeat, close against her own, was not as steady as his voice, but he kept going regardless. "No-one's going to be surprised, you know; no-one's going to cut the connection now. The century's on the turn, a pork merchant can hire an opera-box and a ballerina can become a Baroness, and the two of us are past the stage of shocking anyone any more. What's scandal in youth is mere folly over forty..."

And maybe he was right.

Christine let the idea creep in very slowly, afraid to look at it. Hadn't she thought the same thing of Meg Giry the other night? She could bow out now, at the height of her profession, before the claques began to whisper for younger singers; she could leave rehearsals and fittings and temperamental tenors behind, and tell the critics _en grande dame_ just what she thought. Lucie could be presented, and dance until dawn with a Duke's son in a whirl of foaming white—

Yes, and they could all leave this home they'd made and live in a fairy-tale. A slow tear escaped from between closed lids, and she felt Raoul turn her face upwards; felt the brush of his mouth against her cheek where the teardrop lay. And she dared not, could not lose this warm licence between lovers for the formality of the conjugal visit and a table full of silver...

"I can't," she said almost desperately, as if that could make him understand, and heard him draw in a hiss of breath on an angry idea.

"Is it _him_? Are you trying to tell me— is this all some kind of guilt? In all these years... did your Erik, your precious Voice, exact some kind of promise from you? Did you— when Philippe—"

He broke off between set teeth as her eyes flew wide; and for an instant, through all that had gone between, she could glimpse once more the flushed, clumsy boy beneath the white domino. "Tell me, Christine, was that the whole reason — from the start?"

"Dearest..." She could have laughed, could have cried; and was it old jealousy awoken, or did he truly believe her pledged to music by the will of a long-dead rival — sworn never to marry? Poor ghost, it was her young girl's heart that he had sought to keep untouched... and he had known that lost to Raoul before she had even suspected it.

She caught Raoul by the shoulder, gripping hard. "Listen to me — listen! I gave myself to music, of my own free choice. And I gave myself freely to _you_... and he died of it."

And jealousy now from Raoul was folly against all expectation... She held his eyes almost fiercely, willing him to believe, and saw the tension ebb at last into a rueful look at his own expense.

"Then"—it was said softly, but with the old determination—"then marry me, Christine. It won't change anything for us, I swear it. You can sing, or not sing — live here, or live in Paris — receive or live secluded, just as you wish. Only—"

His voice was a little unsteady; he tried to laugh it off, and caught her hand between his own. "We're of an age to do what we please, you and I. But... it would be a very great pleasure for me to call you my wife."

The truth of that in his face, open and unprotected, threatened to steal her breath. She had to look away, and felt her fingers tremble in his.

"I won't press you for an answer. I can wait a year or two; we've waited long enough." He touched her hand to his cheek in reassurance, letting the words fall lightly on a smile. "Maybe for the next time I'll find some spot that's a little more romantic... a little less comfortable."

For a moment they were at rest. Coals shifted in the grate and fell with a little leaping flame, and the light flickered across the room, showing worn rugs, scarred varnish, shabby paint. In all the crazy quilt of their life together, she had never been happier anywhere but here...

"Comfortable will do." She laid her head back against his breast with a sigh of homecoming. "And I don't know what will come of it... but the answer's yes."

The steady beat beneath her cheek had lurched into sudden disbelief. She reached up to silence a torrent of words with the leaping incongruous joy of her own mouth on his, familiar yet achingly new... and the look in his face was recompense enough. Whatever might come after, she knew now her heart's answer was yes — a hundred times yes.


End file.
